Saturday, November 28, 2020

This Fleccas Talks video has a weird mistake

I was watching this video by Austin Fletcher, titled "FLECCAS VS CNN: ATTACK OF THE MUPPETS" and noticed a weird mistake.


Fletcher says he has a list with ~10,000 names of dead people in Michigan who cast ballots in the 2020 election:  https://controlc.com/0e98b0bf.  Fletcher is upset because CNN did a fact-check on this claim, but, apparently, they fact-checked a different list with 14,000 names rather than Fletcher's "tight" list.  

Fletcher proceeds to show an example of a dead Michigan voter casting a ballot.  Behind him a video screen displays the Michigan Voter Information Center website.  Some data is being typed into the website, and Fletcher narrates:
This is their names being put in.  This is the Michigan state voter index showing us that they requested and returned absentee ballots.  And this is their obituary.
I paused the video three times and expanded the player, and I'll break it down by shot:  

The first screen shows voter information for a Carol Fisher, born January, 1939, living in the zip code 48603.


The second screen shows Carol Fisher is a registered voter in Saginaw County, and that she was sent an absentee ballot on September 28, 2020, and that her ballot was received on October 20, 2020:


The third screen shows an obituary for Diane Williams, who passed away on April 10, 2010.  


If you want to suggest Carol Fisher is dead, then why show an obituary for Diane Williams?  Was it really that difficult to get just one good example lined up for this video?

The video then switches to grid of smaller screens, each rapidly cycling through the names of Michigan voters and their (supposed) online obituaries.  The text is hard to read, and frankly I'm not going to bother checking them.  I mean, if Fletcher was so sloppy that he couldn't get the first pair of names to match, then I don't really have faith that he did a better job with the other names.

I checked the comments to see if any eagle-eyed viewers noticed the same thing I did, but most of the top comments were stuff like this:



Thursday, November 19, 2020

The guy behind @CJTruth is totally shredded

I was reading this NewsGuard report about Twitter accounts labeled as "super-spreaders" of COVID-19 misinformation.  One account they highlighted was @CJTruth, whom they described as:  "An anonymous Twitter account created in 2009 that promotes the QAnon conspiracy."   

Well, if you say a person is anonymous, then I'm going to be curious about who they are.


CJTruth is a Bible-quoting QAnon supporter with 255,000 followers.  His Twitter bio says:  "Jesus Christ is Lord! Patriot/Digital Soldier Fighting 4 Faith, Justice & Freedom. WE ARE THE NEWS NOW #GodWon #SpiritualWarfare #Pray714 #Psalm91."  A Mother Jones article from June identified a couple QAnon Twitter accountsincluding CJTruththat played a significant role in amplifying the hashtag #FireFauci.  CJTruth has called Dr. Fauci a "Deep State criminal" and a "Deep State swamp rat," so clearly he's not a fan.

CJTruth is also on Gab with the handle "truthandlife."  His bio states: "Husband/Father Fighting For Faith, Justice & Freedom. Exposing the Darkness & Revealing Truth. My faith is in Jesus not in Q but I do listen to Q."


There is an account named "truthandlife" on the site T-nation.comand, yes, it's the same guy.  T-nation.com bills itself as "the world's largest hardcore training site."  It turns out truthandlife is a transformation/nutrition coach named Chad Jackson.  In 2015 he showed his progression from "Fat Dad to IFBB Physique Pro."  

This guy is no jamoke.  He totally got shredded, and he even won a trophy:  

'This is for you, Q!'

Jackson has also been outspoken against Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and he recently entertained the idea of running against Crenshaw in 2022:


What a manly political contest that would be!

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Buzzmag.live

Buzzmag.live is a website that copies-and-pastes articles, and then changes a few words in each paragraph.  

Here's an article from October 14, 2020, titled "Cristiano Ronaldo Falls Victim To The Coronavirus."


Here's a Reuters article from October 13, 2020, titled "Cristiano Ronaldo tests positive for COVID-19"


Sample text from the Buzzmag.live article:

The 35-year-old forward is asymptomatic and is most likely to miss Wednesday’s UEFA Nations League game against Sweden as he self-isolates.

The federation added that the rest of the Portugal team had undergone tests as a result of Ronaldo testing positive, but they claimed that all tested negative and would be available for the Sweden match.
Sample text from the Reuters article:

The 35-year-old Juventus forward is asymptomatic and will miss Wednesday’s UEFA Nations League game against Sweden as he self-isolates.

The federation added that the rest of the Portugal squad had undergone tests as a result of Ronaldo’s positive, but that they had all tested negative and would be available for the Sweden match.
The homepage and articles on Buzzmag.live contain AdSense ads.  

Some users on Reddit are spamming the site, but I didn't notice any of them gaining much traction.  Here's user /u/Samanthabadra.  The WHOIS page for buzzmag.ive indicates the registrant is from Gampaha, Sri Lanka.

Saturday, October 3, 2020

Why is this Facebook voting ad so spooky?

A few nights ago I was watching TV when this jarring commercial aired:

The point is to encourage Facebook users to learn about the 2020 voting process.  But the ad makes voting seem like it's some ominous endeavor.  Here are some highlights: 

0:00:  Spooky piano music plays.  An old woman stares out the window.  A girl in a darkened room gets ready to blow out her birthday candles, possibly for the last time.  A despondent man sits in the woods.  A mailman has a concerned look on his face while holding an envelope.  Some dude in a bathroom is stunned while reading a Facebook update about a dog.

0:17: A beleaguered mother of two tries to type something into her phone, and fails.

0:27: Close-up shot of a tongue.  

0:33:  The spooky piano music plays again.  The elderly woman asks her friend, "You'll be safe, right?"  (This is the LAST thing you'd ever want to ask someone in a horror movie.)  Two women in masks douse a voting area with spray and goo.  

0:49:  The ghostly sound of a child's laughter is heard.  

0:52:  A guy goes "Whoo!" in the voting booth.  (This isn't  scary, but the guy seems obnoxious.  I think he's wearing a fedora.)

0:56:  A plug for the website: www.fb.com/votinginfocenter.  This is the thing being advertised, believe it or not.  

With all that said, the actual FB website seems useful, and I was able to check my registration status in about 45 seconds.  However, I would have never thought to visit the website if I weren't poring over this spooky ad in preparation for writing a blog post.  The whole presentation reminded me of that infamous ad for the electric car.  You know, the one which made it seem like anyone who bought an electric car was doomed:

Friday, October 2, 2020

TheUnionJournal.com

TheUnionJournal.com is another site which plagiarizes content.

Here is an article from September 4th, 2020, with the byline Turan Gafarli, titled: "Amazon deletes 20,000 reviews after evidence of profits for posts."

The text is copied entirely from an FT.com article from September 4th, 2020, written by David Lee, titled: "Amazon deletes 20,000 reviews after evidence of profits for posts"

The Union Journal has a Twitter account with 1,987 followers and a Facebook page with 495 likes.  The Transparency section on the Facebook page lists the owner as Rottweiler Life(?) and it lists Egypt as the location of the three page managers.  A few posts from The Union Journal have done well on Reddit; a submission in /r/WorldNews linking to the story about Amazon reviews received over 63,000 upvotes.

The articles on TheUnionJournal.com display AdSense ads and contain internet chum.

As of October 2nd, the homepage of TheUnionJournal.com contains two additional outbound links:  One link leads to DigitalMarketNews.com.  Another leads to Reporter.am (The Armenian Reporter), which is listed as a "partner."  Both sites have a similar website layout at TheUnionJournal.

Thursday, October 1, 2020

TheDailyNY.com

 Here's a news website which doesn't serve any purpose:  

www.TheDailyNY.com

The About page says:

The Daily New York is an online newspaper that brings you all the latest updates regarding Politics, Business, Tech, Entertainment, Health, Sports, Style, Travel and More.

We are truth hunters and narrators. We are writers, planners and technologists, joined by a strategic vision to empower the world. We demonstrate the veracity of history as it unfurls and clarify what occurred, why it did, and what it means to you.

Our items and stages take you to the farthest corners of the world, and they carry the world to you, conveying materials and stories that improve your lives, your families and your networks.

We are accessible on a larger number of screens in a larger number of spots than some other news source. We represent greatness in our news coverage and our items. We are focused on serving you

You should've realized something was off by the time you reached "Our items and stages take you to the farthest corners of the world."  The homepage has a Statue of Liberty graphic, and the header has links for "World," "Business," "Opinion," "Sports," etc... 

The site has lots of articles, most which are two paragraphs long.  The articles don't seem to be plagiarized, but the grammar is janky.  The only byline I saw was "Chris Norton," and clicking on the byline takes you to:  https://thedailyny.com/author/thedailynyofficial/.  I opened some stories in an incognito tab, and there weren't any ads.  The Contact page just contains a submission form.  The domain was registered on July 24, 2020.  

Here's a sample story titled "Serena Williams pulled out of French Open with Achilles injury ahead of her match against Tsvetana Pironkova":  https://archive.is/npT3t

TheDailyNY has a Twitter account with 612 tweets and 2 followers, and a Facebook page with 2 "likes."  This could all simply be some dude's personal project.  I'm not really sure.

A reddit account named /u/Ali_Sands has been spamming the domain.  Ali_Sands was also spamming another site a couple months ago called 365gamez.com, and he promoted some sort of "Song Quiz" app, which you can see in the Google Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.artonstudios.songquiz.  It's from Arton Studios.

Saturday, September 12, 2020

PeaceData.net on Reddit

Graphika published a report on the PeaceData.net network, which was attributed to Russia's Internet Research Agency.  The website never reached a wide audience, but it's still interesting to look at the IRA's activity.

In addition to the main website (PeaceData.net), the network also consisted of social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  One of the Twitter profiles was "Alice Schultz" (@AliceSc14113509), which was created on June 3, 2020.  I looked on Reddit and a found a user named /u/AliceSchultz25, which is just about the fakest-sounding username you could come up with.  Alice's account was created on June 1, 2020.  She shared two links to PeaceData.net in /r/History and made another self-post in /r/PoliticalDiscussion (which likely contained a link to PeaceData.net).  All three links were removed by the automod and none of them got any upvotes.

I went onto RedditSearch.io, and found 10 other submission to PeaceData.net.  The most successful of these posts received 6 upvotes.

One post came from /u/Thisisntthespace, which is a shadowbanned account, so I can't see when the account was created.

So I assume /u/AliceSchultz25 is a sockpuppet, and perhaps /u/Thisisntthespace was a sockpuppet, too.  None of the other submissions came from accounts that I would say are sockpuppets, but I'll give a summary for the sake of completeness.

Three posts came from /u/gregorjamessmith40, which is a four-month old account with a lot of posts about Turkey and Syria and the Middle East.  He shares a lot of links to sites I haven't heard of, such as LibyaPolicy.com and TheArabWeekly.com.

Two posts came from /u/kavabean2, which is a 12-year-old account with 112,000 karma points.  KavaBean2 is a moderator of /r/Labour and he shares links to a lot of left-wing sites such as PeoplesWorld.org and PeoplesDispatch.com.

One post came from /u/IntnsRed, which is a 14-year-old account with 400,000 karma points.  IntnsRed is a moderator of /r/WorldPolitics2, and he shares links to a ton of websites, including The Guardian, Newsweek, and CounterPunch.

Two posts came from /u/captainwaffles, which is a 10-year-old account.  CaptainWaffles also shares links to videos from Jimmy Dore and articles by Aaron Maté.

One post came from /u/human-no560, and he was sharing the link in order to highlight an example of Russian propaganda, so that doesn't really count. 

Below are all the links:

AliceSchultz25:
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/gugch5/war_crimes_committed_by_british_troops_peacedata/
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/gugpx0/western_special_services_role_in_the/
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/gugynt/brazils_ailing_welfare_state_clashes_against/

Thisisntthespace:
https://www.reddit.com/r/inthenews/comments/h9h4my/indian_government_is_abusing_the_covid19_lockdown/

Gregorjamessmith40:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews2/comments/hi1sxx/how_erdogans_government_is_hiring_mercenaries_for/
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/hi1rjz/how_erdogans_government_is_hiring_mercenaries_for/
https://www.reddit.com/r/socialmedianews/comments/hi1sls/how_erdogans_government_is_hiring_mercenaries_for/

KavaBean2:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Labour/comments/i7r06n/housing_how_coronavirus_has_exposed_this/
https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/i7r2f9/housing_how_coronavirus_has_exposed_this/

CaptainWaffles:
https://www.reddit.com/r/InformedTankie/comments/igr827/svetlana_tikhanovskayas_deleted_webpages_show/
https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageImperialism/comments/igr7tf/svetlana_tikhanovskayas_deleted_webpages_show/

IntnsRed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldpolitics2/comments/i4lb98/does_the_us_military_assassinate_journalists_the/

Human-no560:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ActiveMeasures/comments/ikzshh/this_is_the_website_the_russians_were_using_to/

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

People on Reddit think /u/MaxwellHill is Ghislaine Maxwell

Here's a weird conspiracy theory which sprang out of nowhere.  /u/MaxwellHill is a long-time moderator on Reddit.  He's the #2 moderator on /r/WorldNews and a prolific submitter, having accumulated over 14 million karma points.


However, he hasn't posted anything in the last seven days.  This led people to speculate that /u/MaxwellHill is the online alter ego of Ghislaine Maxwell.  The reasoning is that Ghislaine was arrested this past week, and the two of them have "Maxwell" in their names, so...maybe they're the same person?!


I assume there's no connection between /u/MaxwellHill and Ghislaine Maxwell.  I get why people might fool themselves into thinking there's a connection, but there's no substance here.  Nonetheless, users on /r/Conspiracy and /r/Epstein are digging through MaxwellHill's commenting history (Pizzagate style!), looking for any corroboration that he's Ghislaine.  For instance, he shared an article seven years ago titled "Three Reasons Possession Of Child Porn Must Be Re-Legalized In The Coming Decade."  He also allegedly stopped posting for about three days at the same time when Ghislaine Maxwell's mother passed away.

Here's the thing with MaxwellHill:  He's a semi-mysterious fellow, and he carries some weird baggage with him.  People have complained before that he pushes his own agenda in /r/WorldNews, and there was a controversy several years ago when he turned /r/Technology into a "total shit-storm" (per the Daily Dot).  He's a bit obtuse, and he seems to have no interest in nipping this conspiracy theory in the bud.  A fellow moderator from /r/WorldNews named Hasharin says he spoke with MaxwellHill earlier today to give him a heads up about the conspiracy theory.  Here was MaxwellHill's response:


Hasharin also mentioned that MaxwellHill is a Malaysian man, and that the username is inspired by a place in Malaysia which is literally called Maxwell Hill:   



Several Twitter usersmost notably Joe Leonard (@maelfyn)have shared speculation about MaxwellHill.  Joe Leonard's tweet thread has 5,400 re-tweets and 16,400 likes so far.  There have also been threads on 4Chan's /pol/ board filled with speculation.